


Here I am, and I stand

by inkbert



Series: Here I am, and I stand [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Past Relationship(s), Unrequited Love, badass Darcy Lewis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 13:27:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6958294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkbert/pseuds/inkbert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's his birthday. Friends go to birthdays. Darcy is determined to finally get over Bucky, while making sure that no one catches on that that's still a thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. March 14th, 2015

**Author's Note:**

> Greetings! This is my first ever post, and I'm mired in doubts. Constructive criticism welcome, I'm new to all of this and positive I'm doing something wrong... somewhere. It is a songfic, which I've never done. As a reader, songfics are kind of undecided for me. But it helped me finish the fic, so I'm leaving it in. Sara Bareilles - Gravity.

Something always brings me back to you.  
It never takes too long.  
No matter what I say or do  
I'll still feel you here 'til the moment I'm gone.

March 14th, 2015

  
It’s his birthday. Friends go to birthdays, she’d rationalized. It would be weird if she didn’t, and if there is one thing that she wants out of all this, it's that she doesn’t want it to turn weird.

And it's in a public place. People coming, people going. Super casual. It's the perfect place for her to drop in, wish him a happy birthday, and to prove to everyone that everything is fine. Just fine.

Maybe she’d even hug him. She pictured it. Hugging him while laughing at something Jane said, only paying half attention to him. Or maybe a cute guy. An army friend of Sam’s? No, she’d break out of the military thing, or people would think it was a rebound, and therefore assume she was still hung up on him. Which strikes out Nat and Clint’s assassin friends, Thor’s friend with long hair, and anyone with blue eyes.

Which is cool. Nat and Clint don’t have that many friends. Fandral is too slick for Darcy’s tastes, and there’s the whole no dating your brother’s friends thing, even if Thor is only her janky-style adopted bro, and blue eyes aren’t that common. Right?

So anyway, she’d waltz in with Jane and Thor, having a grand time being back in New York. She’d meet the cute guy, maybe a fire fighter – no. No heroes. Maybe a scientist! Yes, one of Bruce or Jane’s friends. He’ll be hipster cute, with kind of fluffy hair and glasses and be able to pull off suspenders.

Darcy will be mostly focused on him by the time she reaches Bucky to wish him a happy birthday. It’ll be a fast one armed hug, as she makes arrangements for dinner some time before she leaves town again with cute-hot scientist dude, and negotiates the suspenders.

Totally moved on, living her life, busy social life, and rocking it on the lecture circuit with Jane.

Except that Thor agreed to go early and help Nat and Clint check the place over, and he’d missed Jane and was determined to spend as much time with her as possible while she was in the city.

Then it’s raining and traffic gets backed up, so Darcy is late and soaked through when she finally gets there. She’d have bailed, but everyone knew she was coming. Bailing last minute after flying in for his birthday party would scream not over him.

She talks herself up before walking through the door. Showing up with a run in her glitter polka dot sheer tights, make-up running, and soaked? No one would think she was still torn up over him showing up like that. She just has to walk in there like she doesn’t even care. Like she would if he wasn’t there in the first place.

Plus, it will totally be a cute first meeting story for her and the cute-hot scientist to tell their kids.

Except four steps in the door and Clint stops at the sight of her and loudly asks, “What happened to you?”

And beyond him is the bar. The mostly empty bar. The bar containing Avengers, Avengers' plus ones, Maria Hill, and Dr. Cho. Darcy pastes a smile on her face and searches the room for Jane.

Jane who has all of the apologies on her face as she drags a woman Darcy doesn’t recognize forward with her. “Darcy! This is Carmen, she’s Bruce and Tony’s new lab assistant.”

Carmen gives Darcy a quick smile of greeting before looking back down at her phone. A Starkphone so new it isn’t available on the market yet. Darcy’s Starkphones used to be that new. Then she hightailed it out of the tower and stopped calling Tony. Her Starkphone can now be dated to the week before the last time she slept with Bucky.

“I’m sorry!” Jane hisses, clutching Darcy’s wrist. “Someone leaked something to USA Today, and they locked this thing down. It was all I could do to get Carmen here.”

Darcy ends up having to sit pretty much directly across from Bucky at the table during the food portion of the night. Carmen is absolutely worthless as a conversationalist – Darcy doesn’t know how Bruce and Tony stand her. How can a person have literally no hobbies? Carmen doesn’t really watch TV, is not a fan of reading, doesn’t care about the weather, and thinks working for Stark Industries is, wait for it, ‘fine’. It’s like pulling teeth. Holy hell, help a sister out, Carmen!

It’s mostly okay though, because Bucky is busy. Busy, busy, busy. He’s talking and laughing with Steve, he punches Sam on the arm, and he’s flirting with the bartender with sex eyes.

Darcy used to get the sex eyes. First when they were fucking. That lasted for a few months, and then Darcy started having feelings for him. That stopped their fucking, because he was still recovering and in no shape for a relationship. And then six months later, when they started fucking again, and tried a relationship. Which had been a big flaming ball of fail.

A painful, heart stomping, go out on a blaze of patheticness that everyone couldn’t help but watch.

After the food, they all split into smaller groups and are freed from the table. Bucky goes to the bar, and spends most of the night leaned forward on his elbows, entrancing the bartender and making everyone elses’ drink orders late.

Darcy knows she can’t leave early, it would defeat the whole purpose of her show everyone who saw her bawling over Bucky that she’s over him trip. She’s aware it has not gone as she might have wished, but she’s stuck now.

It’s triage time. She has three simple goals. One, do not look at Bucky too much. Two, do not not look at Bucky too much. Three, stay busy.

She plays darts with Clint, Sam and Natasha. She plays two rounds of pinball with Thor. She plays skee-ball with Jane and Wanda. She joins Tony at the bar and does a few shots of things he says she just has to try. Briefly, she pretends to have an interest in the Orioles and Braves duking it out on the TV.

Carmen leaves first, but Darcy is determined not to be the first of ‘the group’ to leave. Not that she’s part of ‘the group’ anymore. Pietro calls it a night, and Maria soon after. Darcy decides that’s the perfect time to make her goodbye loop.

She promises to have brunch with Clint the next day, awkward pats Steve because while she’d gotten pretty close with everyone else, Steve had been a front row witness to Darcy’s entire doomed clusterfuck with Bucky and she’d always felt uncomfortable around him.

When she hugs Bucky, one armed like she’d planned, he doesn’t stop flirting with the bartender. She tells him happy birthday, avoids eye contact with Steve who is watching her closely, checks the score on the Orioles game one last time, and beats it out of there like the place is on fire.

To recap, she is not over Bucky. She’s in the exact same place she was in before she left New York eight months ago. She’s in love with Bucky, with every part of Bucky except the apparent douchebag romantic part.  
She loves his voice, his sense of humor, his loyalty, his kindness, his thoughtfulness. He is a grade A friend. He’s fucking gorgeous, so gorgeous he should have a flashing warning label.

He’s a shit boyfriend. She knows this.

But she thinks she did okay. No one told her to hang in there. No one moved to block her view of him when he reached over to play with the end of the bartender’s braid. No one thought to wait until she left the table to teasingly mention Bucky’s fleeting romances with a revolving door of women.

Darcy goes to a different bar. She has a few more drinks, until the muscles in her neck stop aching with tension. She actually does finish watching the Orioles game, rooting for the Braves since they have that cute second baseman.

She meets a nice guy named Eric and has mediocre verging on decent sex with him.

She is not over Bucky, but maybe no one noticed.


	2. July 4th, 2015

You hold me without touch  
You keep me without chains  
I never wanted anything so much than to drown in your love  
And not feel your reign

 

July 4th, 2015

 

Darcy jerks to a stop, hidden by a giant azalea, at the sound of his laugh. It’s the real one, that comes from his gut when something really funny happens. The one that makes his smile appear boyish, and that Steve can’t help but laugh along with.

It’s Tony’s Fourth of July party, and they’re all at his Malibu house. Darcy had insisted on staying at the hotel, for her own sanity. Let some of the others have the guest room Tony and Pepper had offered her. Like Maria, who seems to be maybe warming up to Sam.

Savagely Darcy commands herself to woman up. She has to get over this. She just has to. It’s been over a year. She can’t still feel this way for him.

When they’d been dating, he’d barely done anything to encourage her feelings, to maintain the relationship. No flowers, not even on Valentines Day. No phone calls when he was on missions, not even that time he was gone for nearly two months.

And now? Now he hardly looks at her, he definitely doesn’t talk with her beyond obligatory hellos. He doesn’t even do the obligatory greetings right, he doesn’t ask what she’s been up to or how she is. Because he doesn’t care.

He could give less than two shits what she’s doing. In fact, when she starts walking again, it’s to find him standing with Steve and Pietro, his arm wrapped around a pretty blonde in a gorgeous blue sun dress. Darcy can’t do halter tops. They make her look like a worn out Playboy bunny. The one who shows up thinking she’s auditioning for the main role but is actually up for the chain-smoking, hot mess of a cousin who has one line after she vomits into a potted plant.

The blonde looks perfect in her halter dress. Bucky’s hand almost spans her waist where it rests on her ribs, and she doesn’t have those pudgy rolls at her arm pits. Just toned, tanned skin. None of it even has the decency to look fake.

Darcy could literally start making out with an astronaut who saved the entire Earth from a meteor and Bucky would care more about when the hamburgers will be done.

And Darcy can’t stop keeping track of him. As the day wears on, she’s aware of where he is at any given time. She tries to forget him, but she always sees him out of the corner of her eye. Her body is a fucking traitor.

She knows when he leads that blonde – Katherine – into the house by the hand and doesn’t come back for half an hour. She knows when he stands at the edge of the path to the beach, helping Katherine fix her hair.

She knows when he gets up to grab more drinks. She knows when he strips down to take a swim.

Even when she turns her back on him, she can almost _feel_ him. She can still hear the low rumble of his voice.

He does _nothing_ to foster this stupid as fuck fixation. Hell, they hadn’t talked since his birthday party. But she’d fucking swooned during his distracted interview on Ellen, because he’d been honest and had made a joke and smirked and the audience had swooned, and he’d played with a baby monkey that was there for some reason.

Darcy could almost cry when she watches the fireworks explode overhead. They’re giant and too much and custom made by Tony, Bruce, and Jane. And she feels so incredibly stuck.

She watches all of his interviews, sometimes she watches YouTube videos of the Avengers in action, and she roots for him. During the tough interviews she has her hands in fists, and her stomach in knots. She cares. She cares so damn much, and it hurts.


	3. September 23rd, 2015

Set me free, leave me be  
I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity  
Here I am, and I stand  
So tall, just the way I'm supposed to be  
But you're on to me and all over me

September 23rd, 2015

Darcy is loving the fuck out of these cat videos. She literally cannot look away from her phone. That means conversation, what little there was, awkward and reaching, has ground to halt.

Cats, yo.

It’s all she can do though. Who the fuck thought it was a good idea to send two people who used to fuck like rabbits out together to pick up more streamers? How the fuck did a party planned by Tony Stark not have enough streamers?

“Is Carmen still Bruce and Tony’s assistant?” Darcy asks, because way to fucking go, Carmen. Only after she speaks does she realize what she’s done, dooming herself to more interaction with Bucky.

“Carmen?” Bucky glances over at her, his metal hand gripping the steering wheel lazily. “Carmen Belgraves or Carmen White?”

“There were two assistant Carmens?”

“Belgraves quit back in March. White last month, and they still haven’t replaced her.”

Darcy grumbles at her lap. If Tony and Bruce didn’t have an assistant, that means they would have ordered the streamers themselves for Pepper’s surprise party. And when Tony orders things, he always orders too much.

“We didn’t fucking need more streamers.” Darcy says, scowling at the bags of streamers at her feet. It’s going to look like a Slytherin New Year in there, because Pepper had apparently told Tony that if she saw one more red and gold thing in their suite she was going to leave him. Tony took that literally and went in the exact opposite direction. Silver and green.

“What?” Bucky had glanced down at his phone. He’s texting someone named Thalia.

“If I had known Tony didn’t have an assistant, we could have saved this whole trip. Tony always second guesses and orders more, even after he ordered three times too much the first time.” Darcy explains, waiting for another page of cat videos to load. Her phone is struggling. She’d dropped it off the roof in Salt Lake City. “If we use all the streamers Tony has, we wont be able to walk.”

“Huh.” Is Bucky’s engaged response as they pull down the garage ramp and into the underground parking facility under Avengers tower.

Sam, Steve and Tony wait, the hood pulled up on Tony’s Lambo. Darcy is already sitting up straight in her seat, she won’t be beaten down by no man, but she pastes a bright smile on her face and waves through the windshield at them.

Bucky is texting Thalia a smiley face with heart eyes. Darcy got three texts total from Bucky when they were dating, and they had not been in complete sentences, much less flirty with emoji.

She’s totally in the hating herself part of the break-up. (You know the break-up that has been over for Bucky for a goddamn year? That break-up.) She hates how pathetic she was, how little she demanded from him, how weak she’d been for him.

That’s not her. This isn’t her. She just wants to be done. She wants to be herself again, strong again.

“Darce?” Bucky pulls the parking brake, but he’s staring at her. Actually looking at her this time, eyes moving over her face, cataloging everything.

Coming to the exact conclusion she didn’t want him to. His brow puckers, his head tilts. Trying to figure out what has her so upset. She’s internally piling sandbags to keep back the swell of emotions. The sirens are going off, and it’s not a drill.

He looks down at his phone, then back up at her, and she sees realization dawn.

Oh fuck. Fucking fuck fuck. Tears want to well, and her eyes do burn, but Darcy clenches her jaw, because fuck no. Hell no is she going to get out of this car crying, so her misery is made public to Steve and Sam and Tony.

Hell no.

“Darcy,”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Bucky.” Darcy says savagely, snatching up the bags of streamers. One roll escapes, and she grabs it. “Just leave it.”

Maybe Steve catches onto something weird, but Tony is all kinds of worked up about the party and is totally willing to let Darcy steamroll on by.

And maybe Darcy drinks too much, but she sings karaoke with Pepper and Natasha, and then again with Pietro. She meets a cute-hot scientist, and he thinks she’s the best thing since sliced bread.

She dances and flirts and follows through on her determination to have a good time and ignore the shit out of Bucky.

Because she’s all of the over it. She’s done. She’s forcibly severing the ties. She’s been mortified in front of him for the last time.


	4. December 2nd, 2015

Oh, you loved me 'cause I'm fragile  
When I thought that I was strong  
But you touch me for a little while  
And all my fragile strength is gone

December 2nd, 2015

Darcy kind of hates herself all over again when she wakes up clinging to Bucky’s hand. She closes her eyes and fights back the tears that want to well, instead listening to the sounds of the hospital around her.

Of course he’s here when she’s down. Hadn’t he said, when he’d been ending their relationship, that he thought he’d been drawn to her because she was like him? Lost?

Except she hadn’t been lost back then. Maybe she’d been a little lonely, but she’d known exactly who and what she was. It was only after she got involved with Bucky that she lost herself.

So he’d recognized something in her, something raw like he was, something left over from her fucked up childhood. And their relationship had been all kinds of bad news. As she’d gotten more broken, he’d gotten stronger. Better. And he didn’t need her anymore.

And now here they are again. Darcy wiggles her hand free, ignoring the ache in her wrist. The beeping from the heart monitor picks up.

“Darce?”

Darcy opens her eyes to see him leaning over her, concern bright in his blue eyes. Her heart lurches, and she wants to punch it. “Jane?”

“Jane is fine. They’re going to release her this afternoon.” He reaches for her hand again, and Darcy is so relieved about Jane that she lets him have it. “You’re the one everyone is worried about.”

Darcy curses her reaction to his touch, to the soft, gentle tone he uses. Had she ever heard him sound so gentle? “Pshh, I kicked that dump truck’s ass.”

Bucky looks her over. “I’m thinkin’ maybe it’s a tie.”

“Darcy!” Thor booms from the door. “You’re awake! Jane! Darcy has awoken!”

Darcy can’t help but laugh, imagining the hospital staff’s reaction to having a thunder god bellowing down the hallways. No one is brave enough to shush him, at least not that Darcy hears. Then she notices the crisp white walls, the wall the glass that makes up a gigantic window, and streamlined tech.

“Are we at the tower?”

“You don’t remember flying here?” Bucky asks, looking more concerned.

“I remember flying.” Darcy says, and she also remembers clinging to his hand, scared out of her mind for Jane after a dump truck careened into them on the highway. She’d cried and tried to curl into his touch. “I thought we were just going to a hospital in Nevada.”

“You needed the finest of care.” Thor says, coming around to stand opposite of Bucky. “Helen assures me that you will make a complete recovery.”

“You had surgery last night. A couple things they promise were unnecessary were removed.” Bucky looks like he’s still not sure about it.

A nurse comes in, one Darcy doesn’t recognize. But pretty, with fiery red hair and gorgeous smattering of freckles. She just doesn’t have it in her to watch Bucky flirt, so she closes her eyes and lets herself slip back to sleep.

But she doesn’t let go of his hand. She’s probably weak from blood loss and it’s been a shitastic few hours, so she lets herself take comfort where she can. She’ll worry about her stupid heart and appearances and her self-respect tomorrow.


	5. January 21st, 2016

I live here on my knees as I try to make you see  
That you're everything I think I need here on the ground  
But you're neither friend nor foe though I can't seem to let you go  
The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down  
You're keeping me down  
You're on to me, on to me, and all over me

January 21st, 2016

“I really wish you would stay.” Bruce says, watching her over the rim of his cup of coffee. He’d just started trusting himself to have one cup of coffee a day. “At least for another three weeks, a couple more check ups.”

“I already found a doctor in Colorado who will keep an eye on things. She’ll send everything to Helen.” Darcy reminds him. “I’m going.”

“I don’t see why you’re in such a rush.” Tony grumbles. “Don’t you like us anymore, Lewis? What does Colorado have that my tower doesn’t?”

“Jane.” 

“Jane will stay if only you ask, Darcy.” Thor gently rubs Darcy’s shoulders, mindful of the place she’d had twelve stitches. All that’s left now is a long pink scar.

“There is no reason for Jane to stay. I’m ready to get back to work. I’m tired of sitting around, especially here where no one will let me do anything for myself.” Darcy motions to her cereal, which had been poured by Bruce, and her coffee, which had been topped off by Thor.

She says nothing of the more pressing reason. Being back in the tower makes it feel like she’s right back where she was two years ago. Trying so hard to make things work with Bucky. Thinking that if she was just patient enough, understanding enough, it would all turn out okay.

Bending over backwards to make excuses for the times he treated her like shit. Bailing at the last minute on their plans, his mood swings, the distance he always kept between them. Fucking? Fine. Watching movies together on the couch? Too much. Spending the night? Crazy talk. Going for a coffee together? He’s got better things to do. No matter that he’d go for coffee with Steve and Sam.

Everything here just reminds her of how low she’d gone for him. She was embarrassed by her past behavior. Before Bucky, she never would have stood for any of that. 

She’d tried so hard to convince him that he could be what she wanted. That she didn’t care about all of things he said made them incompatible. She’d begged. She’d begged him to give it more time. 

She can’t stand being here again. Where she’d spent nights in her suite waiting for him to show up late, only to be disappointed. Where she’d fallen apart after he’d left her. 

Like thinking of him had summoned him, Bucky walks into the kitchen. Darcy returns his good morning and sets to finishing her cereal. 

When she slurps down the last of her milk she moves to stand and Steve swoops in out of nowhere to take her bowl.

“Let me get that for you, Darce. Good on coffee?”

Darcy directs a look down the table at Bruce and Tony. She just happens to see Bucky standing behind them in the kitchen, head tipped back as he gulps a glass of orange juice, adam’s apple bobbing. 

Jesus.

“Welp. ER is not going to marathon itself.” Darcy pushes up out of her chair, making a concentrated effort to move normally. It’s like they all thought she was going to compete in a Warrior Run if she left the tower. 

She bails on the common room fast, booking it back to Thor and Jane’s suite. Her injuries had given her the perfect excuse to not move back into her old suite. Because this is temporary and she’s not moving back and she’s pretty sure those rooms reek of pining.

She does feel kind of bad. They’re all only trying to help. But being around Bucky? Even if she’s decided that her heart knows better, that she doesn’t want him anymore, her body has no damn chill. Being around him? It only brings her down.

Movie nights with everyone used to be awesome. And they’re still cool, except for when she ends up next to Bucky on the couch. Most activities turn into group activities, which used to be Darcy’s thing. The more the merrier. But she makes plans to try a new restaurant with Pepper, then Tony’s invited, then Rhodey is in town, and somehow she ends up splitting the stuffed mushrooms with Bucky and Wanda. 

Once she’s in Thor and Jane’s living room she slows down and moves a little more gingerly. Knee injuries? Zero stars, would not recommend. 

Jane texts her from the lab and asks if she wants to go to the hot dog truck for lunch with Sam. Where one of the soldier bros goes, the others usually follow. Darcy agrees and tells herself it’s only for another week.


	6. March 14th, 2016

Set me free, leave me be  
I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity  
Here I am, and I stand  
So tall, just the way I'm supposed to be  
But you're on to me and all over me

March 14th, 2016

“You smell like a monkey, and you look like one too!” Darcy dodges the party favor Clint blows into her face, singing along. He tries again and she manages to rip it out of his mouth. “Happy Biiiiiirrttthhhddaaaaaaaaaaay, to yoooouuuuuuuuuuuuuu.”

Jane holds her hand tightly. So tightly that Darcy is losing feeling in it. Bucky edges past her, trying to get away from the center of things now that Sam is cutting the cake.

“Hi. When did you get here?”

Darcy wiggles her fingers in an attempt to get Jane to loosen her grip. “Hi! Happy Birthday! Um, twenty minutes ago.”

“Thought you were supposed to be in last night. Clint picked a bar and everything.”

“We got a flat tire, ended up spending the night in the ‘bago 2.” Darcy shrugs. “We called Thor. Anyway, gonna grab a drink, see what’s what at this shindig.”

With that she tows Jane along, heading for the bathroom. There are two pregnancy tests in Darcy’s purse that apparently can’t wait until tonight.

Darcy weaves through Bucky and Steve’s living room, veering at the last second from Bucky’s room. She’d been headed for the attached bathroom, an instinctive desire for privacy and habit leading her there. Instead, she tugs Jane into the guest bathroom just off the living room.

“Okay, you need to let go. Seriously.” Darcy shakes her hand free after locking the door. “Are we gonna do this here?”

“I can’t not know!” Jane gasps out. “Why did I realize this today? Why couldn’t I wait until tomorrow? I’m that woman! I’m that woman who does a pregnancy test outside of the rightful privacy of her own bathroom!”

“Let’s bring it down a notch, okay?” Darcy swings her purse off her shoulder and digs through it to unearth the two pink boxes. “We’ll just do the tests, and then evaluate the data, right?”

“Don’t try to Science talk me.” Jane says even as she unbuttons her pants.

Darcy rips open one of the boxes and tips her head. “Those are my underwear.”

Jane looks down at the purple violet covered panties. “Thor likes them.”

“Aaannnd you can keep them.” Darcy shoves a stick at her. “Here, pee on this and never speak of Thor enjoying my underwear again.”

There’s a cheer from the living room, then a round of laughter. Clint is doing his hyena laugh again, which means Nat is probably smiling a real smile while watching him.

Jane stands in the shower, with the door closed, while the tests sit on the counter. It would be funny if it wasn’t such a big deal.

“Oh, fucksticks. Darcy, I am just not ready for this. I mean, I’m not ready for normal babies, much less ones that are Asgaardian royalty.” Jane babbles while Darcy leans over the tests. One line so far. Two lines means pregnant. “I just said fucksticks. I can’t be a prince or princess’s mother. And Thor will definitely want to get married now.”

Darcy nods, because Thor thinks a full moon, a pop machine containing cherry Pepsi, or it being Tuesday are all solid reasons to marry Jane.

“There is a pretzel stick in my bra right now because I dropped it and I forgot about it. And yes, I know normally we find that shit funny, but right now it’s really not. I was going to be more together when this happened.” Jane knocks tentatively on the glass. “Is it time yet?”

“One more minute.” Darcy says, glancing at her phone. “Both tests agree that you have more time to get ready.”

“Are you serious?” The shower door flies open, hitting Darcy in the back of the shoulder. “Oh god. Oh, thank you. I need a drink.”

Jane sinks onto the floor, pressing her hands to her cheeks. “Hide those.”

“Oh, sure. I’ll just keep touching your pee sticks.” Darcy wraps them both in wads of toilet paper and shoves them into her purse. “I know you’re a little busy right now, but I fully expect recognition of how awesome a friend I am later.”

“Drinks.” Jane grabs Darcy’s hand and pulls herself to her feet. “We need so much alcohol.”

Darcy pulls open the door in time to see Sam and Bucky pulling off soaked shirts, while Clint dabs at his with a napkin.

Yes. Alcohol.

“Lewis, do a shot!” Clint yells, immediately pouring clear liquid into a small glass. She reaches for it, but he blocks her and adds some blue liquid.

“Birthday cake shots.” Tony says, resting his chin on her shoulder. The arm he wraps around her is careful, used to the weeks he helped cart her around after the ‘bago 1 accident. Darcy stills a little, because physical affection from Tony is rare.

“Don’t put that shit in it.” Bucky swats a pink bottle away from her glass. He tops it off with another clear liquid, then holds it out to her.

Darcy takes the shot but feels she is standing entirely too close to Bucky when his elbow brushes hers as he reaches for another bottle.

“I want real cake!” She declares, nudging Tony so he’ll move. Tony tugs her backwards with him onto the couch instead.

“We need cake!” He yells.

“Cake!” Clint thrusts two more purple colored shots at them.

“I got it, I got it.” Sam pats Darcy’s shoulder as he passes. Darcy twists in her seat to check on Jane and finds her friend studiously making out with Thor in the hallway.

Darcy gets two more cake shots, and then a piece of cake bigger than her face. She raises a brow at Sam, but the man is already walking away, talking about icing ratios.

She manages a third of it, and it’s good, it’s really good, but she’s drinking and now she’s got a sugar rush. If she doesn’t stop, rainbow colored vomit is in her future.

“Steve! I need a super soldier to-“ Darcy looks around the living room, ready to foist her cake off on his ridonkulous appetite, only to find that he’s moved out onto the patio with Natasha, Pepper, and Rhodey.

This leaves her staring semi-awkwardly at Bucky. After beat too long, she shoves her plate at him. Shoving food off on Steve wouldn’t have been weird, but it is weird with Bucky.

Or she’s just building it all up in her mind, which, totally possible. She’s not been an A+ mature grown-up about any of this.

“You know how much of this I’ve already had?” He asks, leaning forward to take the plate from her. And he just kind of stays leaned forward, so that he’s close enough that it’s awkward not to talk.

“It’s your birthday,” Darcy’s mouth says all on it’s own, and hey, it’s words strung together that make sense, “you have to eat too much cake, Buckster.”

Aw, nickname, no. Mentally slapping her forehead, Darcy searches for her shot glass. Which is empty.

Why is he talking to her? They don’t talk. It’s their thing. Everyone has a thing, and Bucky and Darcy’s is that they don’t talk. It’s awesome.

Oh, shit. Unless he has to tell her something. Something he feels obligated to tell her, since they used to date. Did he get engaged? The tabloids are always printing nutball shit about the Avengers and secret weddings, but did he actually do it?

Who even is he dating? He had been dating that immigration lobbyist, Leah Mendoza for a while, but they broke up. Did they get back together? Is it someone new?

Shit.

“What is your girlfriend’s name again?” Darcy asks, voice a little shrill. She manages to temper it with a smile. An, I’m interested and not at all flipping my shit over something so incredibly stupid that I should so fucking be over smile. “Leah?”

“Leah?” Bucky pauses, a bite of cake halfway to his mouth. “Ah, no, things didn’t work out with Leah.”

“Oh. Sorry. Wait, Jane said... It’s Hope. Hope the arborist from the green labs.” Darcy smiles at finally remembering.

“Hope! Hope is awesome.” Clint pours another drink into Darcy’s glass. Just the one pour, apparently the specialty shots are finished for the evening. “She kicks ass at darts. I have to actually try.”

Okay. Hope. Hope is Bucky’s girlfriend, and hangs out with the team. That’s good. It’s very good for him. He’s moved on from all the shit that held him back in his relationship with her.

“She’s great.” Bucky says, eyeing Darcy’s drink. Ugh. She catches his eye and throws back the shot.

“Darcy!” They all look up at the muffled voice and the knocking on the glass. Holy shit, how did she miss the rainbow bridge opening up?

“Fandral!” Darcy grins at him and waves. Then they all watch him edge along the window, attempting to find the frame-less sliding door. Every few seconds he beams at her.

“They really are like puppies.” Clint observes sagely, tipping sideways into Darcy.

“I have come to celebrate your day of birth!” Fandral declares when he makes it inside, coming over to clap Bucky on the shoulder. Bucky almost drops the plate, and Darcy has to reach up and steady it.

Then Fandral plucks her up from the couch. “Direct me to the cake!”

Darcy plants a kiss on his cheek because he is literally her hero. “You have given me the gift of dignity, and for that you shall be rewarded.”

“Milady-“

Darcy smacks his chest. “Not like that. Stop with the flirting already, it’s not going to work.”

Thor comes in and helps Fandral make a huge dent in what was left of the cake. Darcy sucks down water like she ran a marathon, but there are certain survival motivated Bucky guidelines she’s adapted over the years.

A steady alcohol and subsequent hydration method has likely saved her any number of embarrassing scenarios.

Dignity takes another hit a few hours later when Darcy tries to step over Natasha and Maria’s legs and trips. Steve catches her, hauling her up and over their legs like it’s nothing.

Which should not be allowed with normal women, but should especially not be allowed with women who are 97% over a super soldier.

Darcy pats Steve’s bulging pecs. “Thanks, friend.”

“Okay?” Steve looks down at her in concern, then they both flinch at the squeal of a guitar. Can Clint, or any of the Avengers et al play electric guitar? No. Does Clint, and therefore drunken Avengers et al, have an electric guitar? Yes. “Here.”

He cups one of her elbows with one hand, and wraps his other arm around her back gently, like she’s eighty years old, and guides her towards the other side of the patio.

Is she about to get an excessive drinking talk from Captain America? More importantly, is he tech savvy enough now to realize she’s recording it?

“We’ve hardly had a chance to talk. How are you doing?” Steve asks, once they reach the railing where it’s quieter. He gently touches her shoulder. “Fandral was...”

“He’s a little excitable, and a little drunk.” Darcy acknowledges. “But I’m cool. Almost as good as new by now.”

Maybe she did miss this view. And the feel of the night air rushing up at her through the columns of cement and steel. The gritty but fresh smell of the city, the patio far enough up to spare her the less pleasant odors.

She’s put in mind of a pizza party and Wii game night at Clint’s. Sam had finally just admitted he was an Avenger and moved to New York, and it was the beginning of the end of Darcy and Bucky, though she hadn’t known it at the time.

She’d thought things were improving. Clint had invited her to his suite, Bucky was there. Sure he ignored her, but they were doing couple things. Hanging out with friends together.

Steve had talked to her out on the patio that night too, when she’d needed a few minutes to shore herself up after several hours of being treated like a leper by her boyfriend.

“And everything else? You’re in Baja California now, right?”

“More desert.” Darcy nods. “But closer to the beach. I love the beach. I was an ocean baby born in a landlocked state.”

Steve’s lips quirk. “Yeah? Buck ever take you to Coney Island?”

A year and half ago she would have cried. Everything made her cry back then. A year ago, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. Six months ago, she might have hit him.

Now she can manage a convincing smile, an understanding shrug. “Must not have gotten around to it.”

The only ‘dates’ they went on were Natasha orchestrated ones that were three-fifths errands.

She can see in Steve’s eyes that he heard what she didn’t say, that he realized he’d kind of stepped in it. His apologetic flustered expression is enough to have her forgiving him. Hadn’t Bucky always teased him about how bad he was with women? Back in those early days when Darcy had hung around their place and things had seemed hopeful?

She reaches up and pats his cheek. “How about you, truth and justice?” Because she can, and because of Bucky, and how Steve will know without a doubt that she means nothing by it, she rolls her hips forward, bumping against his, “How’s it hanging?”

Steve’s eyes flick over her shoulder, back to the group, then back down to her. Hesitance and worry flicker there, then he forces a smile. Captain America is a terrible liar, and Steve Rogers is a worse one.

“Hey. Steve? What’s up?” Darcy moves closer. “Everything okay?”

This they had down. Quiet conversations tucked away from everyone else, usually in a waiting room while Bucky got something taken out of the arm. Chips removed from his spine. Wire taken out of his ribs. It was always something back then, and she and Steve had been uncomfortable bedfellows. The rock steady best friend, position cemented by seventy years of history, and the new girlfriend, precarious and treading unknown waters, proving her trustworthiness for nothing.

But maybe not for nothing. Just not what she thought it was. She’d been there for Steve despite the awkward, because he was Bucky’s. It was the girlfriend’s job, and damn it if she hadn’t been a fucking awesome girlfriend.

"Everything’s good, right?” Steve nods over her shoulder, and Darcy looks back. Pepper has confiscated the guitar, Tony is trying to get her to play it Risky Business style, and Bucky is helping Pietro carry a TV out, while Wanda and Sam hold Guitar Hero guitars.

“Yeah, but there’s a disturbance in the force.” Darcy pokes him in the stomach. Yep, almost finger-breaking hard. “And it’s coming from you, padawan. And so help me Frigga, tell me you have watched that movie.”

“Sam dragged Buck and I to a special showing.” Steve says, holding his hand up as if swearing. “Nat, Wanda, and Pietro came along, because they’d all only seen parts.”

“Wow. I’m kind of jealous of Sam, getting to pop all of your Star Wars cherries like that.”

Steve grins, quick and dirty, the one that America doesn’t know he has. The one that Bucky brings out of him with lowly spoken comments, waggling brows, and knowing smirks.

“I’m not sure I want to know.” Natasha says, and only Darcy’s determination a few years back to learn to not jump with jerk-sassins snuck up on her keeps her from shooting off the roof.

“Lies. Slander. You always want to know.” Darcy accuses, turning to face the other woman. She catches the tail end of some kind of heavy look between Steve and Nat.

Steve looks confused, then a little angry. No. If the rumors of Steve and Nat are true, Darcy wants them to be together with the fire of a hundred rabid-fan hearts. She’d discounted them, because there are rumors of Nat and Steve dating anyone they even look at. (Darcy may or may not have made a Steve!Streetlamp fan site after the Times ran an in-depth article featuring a picture of Steve staring off into the distance just past a lamp... Or was he? It had gotten popular enough to get a portmanteau, Slamp.)

Natasha’s eyes flick to Darcy.

“Slamp.” Shit. She is so out of practice at resisting Nat. And also drunk.

Natasha’s suspicion clears and she smiles brightly. “I knew that was you.”

“That was you?” Steve groans.

“I was bored and stressed from school and...”, Darcy happens to catch Fandral’s eye and tips her chin up because they have practiced this shit.

“DARCY!” Fandral bellows.

“I knew you were doing that on purpose too.” Natasha accuses.

“I have accepted I have no chill, and I have embraced it and my people.” Darcy tells her, and then she’s swept away in Fandral’s arms again and carried over to the couch that had apparently been carried outside as well. He deposits her next to Jane.

Darcy decides that she had a moment over there with Steve. A realization, and maybe she’s coming out the other side of this thing. Lesson learned.

She can be Steve’s friend. They’ve laid the ground work, they’ve got the history. And she can be Bucky’s friend. Hasn’t that been what she’s been pretending all along?

Fuck yeah. Closure.

Darcy directs a grin Bucky’s way when she hears him crow with laughter.

“I see you villain!” Clint yells, pointing at Darcy with one arm while he attempts to wrestle a plastic guitar away from Bucky with the other. “Traitor!”

Bucky glances over, grin still on his face, eyes bright, smile just slightly crooked like it had been in all those pictures of heartthrob Sergeant Barnes from the war.

And Darcy’s stupid heart just flips over in her chest.

“Whaddaya think, doll?” Bucky calls over. “Wanna turn?”

Clint pulls some kind of knee drop leg swing thing. Bucky responds, pushing Clint away, twisting mid-air, and landing again, all in a smooth motion that kept the controller safe.

Darcy feels her blood throbbing in her veins. Doll? Fucking hell, he’d called her that like twice, and both times she’d fucking melted. She’d clung to it, proof that he did have feelings for her, that there was a reason for her to stay in the trenches.

“I want to play.” Jane declares, shoving up from her seat. The bestest friend of best friends, taking the attention that had started to focus on Darcy. Even Bucky’s eyes flick over for a second as Jane teeters unsteadily on her feet before Pietro steadies her.

He’s still pinned by Thor’s hammer, but he’d managed to stretch and reach her. Jane looks at his hand on her elbow, then at him sprawled somewhat uncomfortably on the couch.

“You are absolved of your debt to Asgaard. Now help me walk over there.” She says, plucking up the hammer and setting it aside.

Darcy uses the ensuing distraction of everyone’s surprise to weave her way through the scattered rooftop and slip inside.

“Darcy!” Wanda smiles, slumped into the corner of the loveseat with a pouting Clint. The woman lifts her drink in greeting, and Clint turns his face away childishly. “Want some pizza?”

So. Her heart is a fucking dumbass with an apparently terminal case of the feels for one Bucky Barnes. It doesn’t matter, because she’s strong enough to take it. So no, she’s not going to run off, crawl into bed, and curse her existence.

“Pizza sounds awesome.” Darcy takes advantage of Clint’s inebriated state and steals his plate of pizza.

“Aw, pizza, no.” Clint moans.

“You’re pathetic, Barton.” Darcy tells him, kneeling on the arm of the loveseat to pile more pizza and some doritos on the plate. “Here, I’ll share.”

“You’ll share my food with me? How generous of – Doritos? Fuck yeah.”


	7. June 2nd, 2016

Something always brings me back to you  
It never takes too long  
June 2, 2016

“Here, here. I got it.”

Darcy breathes a sigh of relief and releases her hold on her bags.

Bucky juggles everything a little, shifting it around until he’s holding her suitcase, her pillow, her little party favor bag, and the three grocery sacks much more easily than she’d managed.

“Thanks.” She says, after pulling the hotel key envelope from between her lips. And, not able to wait a single second longer, she bends and pulls off her heels. The leafy vine print on the hallway carpet swims in front of her face.

Damn. She’s out of shape. She used to be able to haul science shit like woah, and now a few measly bags has her nearly down for the count.

“Okay?”

“No parking. Why didn’t I stay with Tony and Pepper?” Darcy grimaces, curling her toes. “Why did I wear those shoes?”

“Looked good.”

“Yeah I did.” Darcy looks at the plastic sign stuck to the wall. “I’m this way.”

“What number?” Bucky is still wearing his white dress shirt, but the collar is undone and his tie hangs loose. His suit jacket is gone, and his hair is mussed.

“Uh, 351.” She glances at her key card to confirm, and fervently hopes she’s not sharing a common wall with him. Oh, god. Or Pietro. At first she’d thought he just liked loud ladies, but now there’s been so many screechers that she’s decided that super speed must translate really, really, well in the bedroom.

“What do you have in here?” Bucky asks, wiggling the shopping bags and trying to peer down his arm, past her pillow, into them. “Hot damn, Darce. Are those wings? It smells like wings.”

“Nunya. And shut up before Clint hears.”

“He’s out at the house.” Bucky is still trying to see into the bags. “Sam’s up in 419, and Pietro’s got 332.”

Ah. Sam took the hotel and let Maria stay out at the house that Tony and Pepper had rented. Work and family break ups are the fucking worst. And where Darcy had only lived in the same building and had the some of the same friends, Sam and Maria live together, have the same close friends, work together, just in general, are all up in the other's business.

It sucks for them, especially because they’d really been so good together. Darcy still hasn’t heard what went wrong, she only knows things imploded while Maria was in Tokyo on assignment.

“Here we are,” Darcy slides the key into the door, watches the light go green. She smirks at the room, trying to imagine Tony staying here. It’s a Holiday Inn Express.

He’d come out to see Jane honored by the American Scientific Academy, but he hadn’t liked having to go to bumfuck, Colorado, aka Marinton.

Bucky sets her things down near the end of the bed, then starts moving around the room. Darcy watches him check the window sills, the telephone, the hairdryer, and the lamps.

She’d thought it was just coincidence that he saw her in the hall, but maybe he’d been waiting for her to check her room over. Darcy shrugs it off, too tired after the long awards ceremony to really care about more than getting settled for the night.

Comfy pajamas, real food, and a few beers are in her future. She’d had too much tiny food and small pours of champagne.

“Done in here?” Darcy asks, heading towards the bathroom.

He looks over in surprise, then down at the light bulb in his hand. He gives her a short nod before returning to screwing it back into place.

Darcy locks herself in the bathroom and slowly unpins and untucks the night. Her hair comes down, bobby pins raining into the sink. Her make up comes off and she washes her face. She lets her dress fall to the floor and pulls on one of Thor’s t-shirts and the Flounder and Sebastian pajama bottoms Natasha had given her for Christmas. (Darcy is ninety percent sure she never told Nat those were her favorite Disney sidekicks.)

By the time she has her teeth brushed and her night time lotion rubbed in, she feels human again. But she did forget her socks.

Bucky is sitting in the stiff green armchair, slumped down a little, his metal hand in his hair.

“Thanks for taking care of that.” Darcy tells him. “I didn’t even think about it, or I would have checked in before going out.”

Bucky shrugs one shoulder. “Gave me time to do the others’.”

“I am thankful, but I’m not sharing my wings. I didn’t buy enough for a super soldier appetite. Sorry.” Darcy tells him, tugging a pair of purple socks from her bag and sitting on the edge of the bed to pull them on. “Oh, man. Are you here because of me? They wanted someone to check the civilian’s stuff, look out for me?”

“Someone woulda had to check Sam and Pietro anyway.”

“So you didn’t have to stay? You’re not, like, working?”

“No.” One brow goes up in a silent query.

“Well, then, you chose to stay at the hotel. So what are you doing in here? Get out there.” Darcy flaps a hand towards her door, then motions at the grocery sacks she’d moved to the bed side table and to her pajama-clad boy. “I’m in for the night, tucked in safe and sound.”

Sam might be doing the noble thing and letting his ex have the better accommodations drama free, but the only reason Bucky and Pietro are slumming it is because they can’t bring un-vetted dates back to a team residence, no matter how temporary. Residences are safe places.

But Bucky is dating Hope still right? Darcy had seen them in a picture at a Dodgers game with Maria, Steve and Nat. And at the Met Gala. And Hope would have been vetted by now, already working in the tower and all. “Is Hope here? Not that I want you to call her in here.”

No fucking way is she meeting Bucky’s new and longest lasting girlfriend in her pajamas.

“Hope.” Bucky nods. “Can I get one of those beers?”

Oh, shit. Darcy’s stomach drops. The obligation talk. She’d managed to skip out back at his birthday, but now here they are. And yes, alcohol will be needed. Darcy pastes on her best interested face as she grabs two beers and pops the top with her keyring bottle opener.

Her keys miss her purse when she drops them, and she makes a mental note not to forget them there.

How happy is the right amount of happy for an ex that got engaged? Or is expecting a baby, that’s possible. Will she have to hug him? Surely that would be too much. Just a congratulations and raising her beer? Too cheesy?

Her smile already feels brittle when she passes the beer off, and stupid super spy that he is, he picks up on it. He sighs, like this is a pain in his ass or something, and some of Darcy panic fades as anger rises.

She stalks over to the bed and climbs in, then carefully arranges her to-go containers in front of her. After taking a long drink of her beer, she sets it aside. “What’s up, Buck?”

“I’ve been trying to talk to you for a while.” Bucky rubs the back of his neck. “You’ve been kinda hard to track down though.”

“The universe doesn’t science itself.” Darcy considers turning on the TV. One to make sure it still works, because when he took hers apart that one time looking for a bug, it did not ever turn on again.

“Am I making you uncomfortable? Is there a reason you won’t look at me?” Bucky asks, tone slightly biting. He shifts and rubs a hand over his face. “Sorry, it’s just I can’t get a read on you.”

“We dated. We fucked. We broke up.” Darcy says bluntly. “That stuff doesn’t just go away. I thought we were doing pretty damn well. Of course, now we’ve got Sam and Maria being the two most well-adjusted exes ever, so they’re kind of making us look bad.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth ticks up. He leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. There’s something steady in his gaze that hadn’t been there before, and it feels like every atom of his being is focused on her.

Darcy grabs the remote and turns the TV on. Jimmy Fallon is on.

“Darcy.”

“Tell me what you need to tell me. The night is still young and all that.” Darcy grabs a wing. Keeping her mouth busy seems like an A+ plan.

Bucky’s eyes narrow. Jesus fuck, who did his hair? It’s all trimmed up, and just brushing his chin in the front. Hot fucking damn, it’s not fair.

“I can’t tell if you’re mad at me, if I make you uncomfortable, if I scare you now – You’re always runnin’ from me, Darce.”

Darcy sighs. “Seriously? I don’t know how you did breakups in the forties, but nowadays most people divvy up the friend group and cut and run.”

“I miss you.”

“You see me more than my own family sees me.” Darcy tells him, at a complete loss. When they do see each other, it’s not like they’re super friendly. They don’t email or IM or text. They certainly don’t call. “A weekend every couple of months is a lot more than most exes see each other.”

“No, Darce. Doll. I miss you, and I wanted to... Darcy, I want to try again, but I can’t figure out for the life of me how you feel.” He goes to run his hands through his hair, realizes he’s still holding his beer, and sets it aside.

“What?” Her voice comes out dull, nonplussed. But that doesn’t last, and next it’s shrill. “What about Hope?”

“Hope. Fuckin’ Hope, where the hell is that comin’ from? We went on one date a year ago, and it’s always Hope, Hope, Hope.”

“I thought you were here to tell me you were engaged. Or, you know – “ She cuts that thought off, still reeling.

“Engaged?” He springs off of the chair and crawls onto the end of her bed. “How could you think I was – Jesus Christ, doll.”

“How could I think? How could I think you were engaged?” There is a roaring in her ears, and Darcy’s fingers go numb. A chicken wing in wang-tang sauce drops onto her bedding. “Like we’ve talked? Ever? Even when we were dating I had no idea what was going on with you, obviously. I don’t know if you remember, but when you ended things, and hello, you ended things, it completely fucking blindsided me.”

“I know, I know. I know it was me, all of it. I fucked up, but I miss you. I’m always thinking about you, you scared the shit out of me in December, couldn’t get to Nevada fast enough.” He looks at her hand, like he wants to take it. He either realizes what a terrible fucking idea that is, or doesn’t want to get his fingers covered in wing sauce. “Every dame since you, she doesn’t measure up. I miss your crappy tulip measuring cups and your crazy pajamas, and those stupid games you play on your phone. And Christ, I’m sayin’ this all wrong, it’s like I’m Stevie, but doll, I think I love you, and I’m beggin’ you to give me another chance at this.”

Darcy is momentarily stunned into silence. Her stupid, stupid heart is doing this blooming thing in her chest. Bucky’s eyes flick over her face.

“An’ that’s why I’m here. Not so I can go out, find some stranger to bring back to my room. It’s because I knew you wouldn’t stay at the fuckin’ mansion Tony bought, because you never do. And this was my chance to finally talk to you, and find out if I had a chance here.”

“You think you love me?” Darcy asks, the words bursting out of her. “You think? Let me help you out here Buck, you don’t.”

“Doll-“

She does not decide to throw the chicken wing at him, but she’s not torn up about it as she watches it hit his cheek and tumble down the front of his dress shirt.

“Do NOT call me that.” Darcy bites out. “You know how I know you don’t love me? One, you fucking left me. Two, you fucking ignored me most of the time while we were together, and all of the time for almost a year after we broke up. Three, I was gonna say this one is a biggie, but they’re all kind of biggies, aren’t they, three, you sure as fuck haven’t been lonely.”

“I wasn’t ready. And I know I was the one that came to you and said I was, and maybe I was ready for dating, but I wasn’t ready for something real. I wasn’t ready for you.” Bucky says, reaching up to wipe the sauce off his face. “But I didn’t know that when I ended things, and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. With you everything felt so damn important and I couldn’t fuckin’ move, and with the others it was all so easy.”

Oh, it was hard? Being in a relationship with her had been hard?

“Get out.” She is so... something, that her hands are literally shaking. She is trembling from the inside out. Vibrating with emotions that swirl and rise up and try to take over and are overcome so quickly that she can’t identify them. “Get out, Bucky.”

“Darcy-“

“Get out!” She practically shrieks, throwing the covers back.

He stands quickly, holding his hands up palms out.

“Get out, get out, get out, get the fuck out.” Darcy says in a stream, stalking to the door to yank it open. She forgets the deadbolt and has to try again, leaving sauce smears on the white door.

He opens his mouth again, once he turns to face her in the hallway. She slams the door as hard as she can and slides the deadbolt home so hard that it hurts her fingers and her knuckles knock against the wall next to the door.

She screams into her pillow, and once she’s done she realizes her room looks like a damned crime scene with the sauce everywhere. She’s definitely gonna be billed for the bedding.

Instead of calling Jane – fuck no, she’s not ruining this night for her friend, especially not for Bucky bullshit – she drinks the six pack. Starting with Bucky’s abandoned beer.

She watches MASH reruns and can’t sleep. Her neighbors on the other side of the wall get in late, are drunk, and fight over who gets to shower first. She has to sleep on the wrong side of the bed to avoid the sauce mess, and the comforter is definitely kind of scratchy.

It’s cool, unlike some people, Darcy is used to staying in far more questionable accommodations.

Two a.m. is when she can’t stop herself from finally thinking about it. He thinks he loves her? He misses her? He wants to be with her?

How could she even have any other feelings than the urge to dropkick his balls? Yes, she’s spent the last year recognizing that her feelings for Bucky are out of her control, but that was the pining ones.

Actually even thinking about getting together with him again? It’s not a fool me once situation, because the first time she’d gone in with the firm and happy understanding that they were fucking, no feelings just good sex. And she’d been the one to develop feelings. So she hadn’t been fooled, she’d been the one to change things up on him.

The second time? Yeah. He had been the one to come to her, to say he was ready for more, and he wanted that with her.

So this time? She should know better. Fuck.

Fuck.

And then she cries, feeling utterly pathetic. And she’s so damn tired of feeling pathetic. He makes her pathetic. God, why can’t she get over him? Why does she have to feel this way for him? He’s terrible for her. The worst thing that ever happened to her.

And he just trots in and out of her life. Uses her heart as a launch pad. And leaves her behind.

Despite sleeping like shit, she wakes up early. Just a little before seven, with the panicked feeling that she’d overslept something important.

She didn’t. They’ve got a brunch reservation at 11:30 in Denver, and she has to be at the airport at 11:00 to catch Tony’s jet.

After a shower, she pulls on her lazy travel clothes, which had been meant for her flight out of Denver with Jane. Then she heads out, towards a Yelp four-star diner called Ruth-Ann’s, and pulls up his phone number.

The last message she sent to him was from August 19th, 2014. Two weeks after he’d ended things. _I’m getting my stuff Thursday. Jarvis will let me in._ The message before that is from August 3rd. _Chinese and Dr. Who tonight?_

She doesn’t even know if this is still his number. Stomach rolling, she sends _Up?_

Because she can’t just leave this up in the air like she wants to. Like she’d said last night, Sam and Maria are handling their break up just fine, and Darcy will be damned if going on two years of work to keep things from getting awful are going to go down the drain.

_I am now._

Darcy has bite back a bitter laugh and she steps out into the warm summer morning air. Look at that. He texted her back on the same day. _Breakfast? I’m grabbing some to go. We should talk._

_OK. You sure you don’t want me to meet you?_

Darcy shakes her head. Not doing this in public. _What’s your room number, and what do you want?_

_403\. Waffles and bacon._

The diner is one of those modern takes on old school joints. It definitely earns it’s rating, Darcy has a latte while she waits, and all the food she sees passing by looks fucking delicious.

Walking back she tries to enjoy the sight of the mountains rising up around the city, purple in the distance, and the pine scent to the air, a far cry from the flat, dry deserts she frequents with Jane. Or the bustling, immersive city of New York.

But she can’t really focus on anything other than what she’s about to do. She’s eats her extra order of french fries on the way, to beat back the hangover that’s threatening to become less of a lurker and more of a pain in her ass.

She doesn’t feel ready when she’s standing in front of the door to room 403. The hotel is quiet around her, other than a family that passes with a luggage cart filled to brimming and a sleeping toddler.

She knocks, because he probably knew the second she stopped outside his door. Sure enough, the door opens more quickly than she’d expected.

His hair is wet and he’s wearing a white undershirt and jeans. Which is the moment Darcy discovers she’s angry enough that she’s actually safe from her reaction to him.

“Hey.”

“Yep. Morning.” Darcy squeezes past him, into a room that is exactly identical to hers. Except his clothes from last night aren’t littering the floor, and there isn’t barbecue sauce smeared everywhere.

The soap smell coming from the open bathroom door isn’t one she recognizes. She takes the armchair this time. No way are they eating on the bed. They’d done that a few times. Way back, or the few times he’d relaxed enough to do shit like that.

“Here you go.” She holds out a stack of three to-go boxes, containing his waffles, some bacon, and also an omelet, because she knows his appetite. “I got you coffee too. Cream’s in the third cup, and sugar should be in the bag.”

“Kinda thought you were gonna throw things at me again.”

“Ha.” Darcy says, flipping open the top of her Styrofoam box. Oh man, it’s all twice fried rice and avocado slices and it smells heavenly. “I’m ready to talk it over in a more controlled manner.”

“Talk it over?” Bucky asks, fork hovering over his waffles.

“What you said.” Darcy takes a quick bite. Yep. Totally awesome. “It kind of came out of left field for me, and I know I didn’t handle it so well. But I’m sure you remember that I didn’t handle our break-up very well.”

“Yeah. That’s why I – Kind of why I had some hope. But like I said, you’ve been kinda hard to get a read on. Half the time I thought you hated me, other times I worried you were afraid of me now, and every once in a while it seemed like maybe you still had feelings for me.”

"Well, I’m not afraid of you. I could never be afraid of you. That was the first thing I wanted to say.” Darcy lets out a breath and jumps in. “But, like I said, we all know I didn’t handle the end of us very well. It took me a while to see how shitty things had been, how you were right to end it. You were right to end it, Buck.”

“Yeah, but that was because I wasn’t ready. I’d look at you, and all I could see was everything that could go wrong. The stakes were too high, and I couldn’t-“

“It was bad.” Darcy interrupts, because he can’t get her off script. She’d spent half the night coming up with what to say. “You weren’t good with me, and I wasn’t good with you. We don’t bring out the good in each other.”

“Nah, Darce. That’s not what that was.”

“Fine, maybe not for you. But for me?” Darcy stabs the last bite out of her box. “I’ve never been like that before. That’s not who I am. I loved you and I just let it make me into this person I don’t even recognize. And then every time I saw you after that?”

“You love me?”

“I loved you. I’m getting over you.” Darcy shuts her box and drops it into the trash can. “And it was a long, hard process. I can’t go back.”

“Sweetheart, it’ll be different. I swear. I know it was bad, and I’m so sorry. I’m sorry that you were the one I fucked it up with, when out of all of them, you were the one that meant the most.” Bucky reaches forward, snagging her hands. “You said you were gettin’ over me. Give me a chance. Just one more chance, doll. I wanna wake up next to you, I wanna make you breakfast, I wanna take you out on the town, I jus’ wanna talk with you Darcy. Baby, I started talkin’ and I figured out you were the one I wanted to call at the end of the day. I started bein’ able to reach for a dame’s hand, and yours was the one I wanted to hold.”

“That’s all that I wanted. Man, if you’d have taken me to the movies or something, would have made my month back then.” Darcy shakes her head and pulls her hands free. Her skin tingles where he’d touched. “But I can’t. I can’t do it again. And besides, I’m going back to Baja with Jane. You’re in New York.”

“Forget about that, it’s nothin’. We’ll make it work. I’ll come out and see you, you’ll come in and see me. Jane and Thor do it.” Bucky says earnestly, his blue eyes burning with intensity. “Let me make it all up to you.”

Darcy shakes her head again, and stands. She’s told him, and now she needs to leave. If they’re gonna salvage this, she needs to go.

“Lemme call you. While you’re in Baja. You can keep datin’ or whatever, we won’t be together, but let me try to win you over again.” He looks up at her from where he’s still sitting on the bed, and holy hell what she wouldn’t have given for him to look at her like that before. “Please, sweetheart.”

Darcy’s heart chugs in her chest. She closes her eyes. She feels like she’s tipping over the edge of a cliff. “Fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end of this song. But there is another song to see Darcy through.


End file.
